Using the default chrome profile with puppeteer that my chrome app uses

Question

I'm having issues getting puppeteer to use the default profile that my chrome browser uses. I've tried setting path to the user profile, but when I go to a site with puppeteer that I know is saved with chrome app's userDataDir, there's nothing saved there. What am I doing wrong? I appreciate any help!

   const browser = await puppeteer.launch({
            headless: false,
            userDataDir: 'C:\\Users\\Bob\\AppData\\Local\\Google\\Chrome\\User Data',
        }).then(async browser => {

I've also tried userDataDir: 'C:/Users/Phil/AppData/Local/Google/Chrome/User Data',, but still nothing.

UPDATED:

const username = os.userInfo().username;

(async () => {
    try {
        const browser = await puppeteer.launch({
            headless: false, args: [
                `--user-data-dir=C:/Users/${username}/AppData/Local/Google/Chrome/User Data`]
        }).then(async browser => {

Have you tried looking into this https://stackoverflow.com/questions/53236692/how-to-use-chrome-profile-in-puppeteer ? — Adriano, Mar 17 '21 at 00:12
I tried doing it like in the answer from that post, but it's still not auto populating the fields. Do you know why that is? See ```UPDATED:``` section to see how I have it setup now. — user6680, Mar 18 '21 at 22:18
@user6680 feel free to add the answer to your question & mark as solved rather than including the answer in your question. It will more clearly help the next person. — serakfalcon, Mar 23 '21 at 03:24

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 23 '21 at 13:31

I had same exact issue before. However connecting my script to a real chrome instance helped to solve a lot of problems specially the profile one.

You can see the steps here: https://medium.com/@jaredpotter1/connecting-puppeteer-to-existing-chrome-window-8a10828149e0

//MACOS
/*
Open this instance first:
/Applications/Google\ Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google\ Chrome --remote-debugging-port=9222 --no-first-run --no-default-browser-check --user-data-dir=$(mktemp -d -t 'chrome-remote_data_dir')
// Windows:
- Add this to Target of launching chrome --remote-debugging-port=9222
- Navigate to http://127.0.0.1:9222/json/version
- copy webSocketDebuggerUrl
More Info: https://medium.com/@jaredpotter1/connecting-puppeteer-to-existing-chrome-window-8a10828149e0
*/
// Puppeteer Part
// Always update this socket after running the instance in terminal (look up ^)

and this is abstracted controller written in Typescript, that I always use in any project:

import * as puppeteer from 'puppeteer';
import { Browser } from 'puppeteer/lib/cjs/puppeteer/common/Browser';
import { Page } from 'puppeteer/lib/cjs/puppeteer/common/Page';
import { PuppeteerNode } from 'puppeteer/lib/cjs/puppeteer/node/Puppeteer';
import { getPuppeteerWSUrl } from './config/config';

export default class Puppeteer {
  public browser: Browser;
  public page: Page;

  getBrowser = () => {
    return this.browser;
  };

  getPage = () => {
    return this.page;
  };

  init = async () => {
    const webSocketUrl = await getPuppeteerWSUrl();
    try {
      this.browser = await ((puppeteer as unknown) as PuppeteerNode).connect({
        browserWSEndpoint: webSocketUrl,
        defaultViewport: {
          width: 1920,
          height: 1080,
        },
      });
      console.log('BROWSER CONNECTED OK');
    } catch (e) {
      console.error('BROWSER CONNECTION FAILED', e);
    }
    this.page = await this.browser.newPage();
    this.page.on('console', (log: any) => console.log(log._text));
  };
}

Abstracted webosocket fecther:

import axios from "axios";
import { exit } from "process";

export const getPuppeteerWSUrl = async () => {
  try {
    const response = await axios.get("http://127.0.0.1:9222/json/version");

    return response.data.webSocketDebuggerUrl;
  } catch (error) {
    console.error("Can not get puppeteer ws url. error %j", error);
    console.info(
      "Make sure you run this command (/Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google Chrome --remote-debugging-port=9222 --no-first-run --no-default-browser-check --user-data-dir=$(mktemp -d -t 'chrome-remote_data_dir')) first on a different shell"
    );
    exit(1);
  }
};

Feel free to adjust the template to suit whatever you enviroment/tools currrently look like.

Using the default chrome profile with puppeteer that my chrome app uses

1 Answers1